This weekend we visited not one, not two, but three sites on our excursion! We began our day at Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Roman Dacia. It was raining in the morning so we visited the site museum. We were able to see sculptures, floor mosaics, and other artifacts. When the rain finally stopped we went into the excavated ruins of the city. Here students were able to visit multiple Roman temples, the city forum, and city walls.
To get to our second location we hopped into the bus and drove through the Romanian countryside to Romania’s oldest stone church. The Densuș Church is an amazing hodgepodge of Roman materials looted from Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa reconfigured into a church. Students had fun searching the building for Roman materials and attempting to identify them. Some popular finds were lion statues from Roman funerary monuments on the church roof, and a horse relief carving right in front of the altar.
Our third and final stop was an impromptu addition to our excursion, Hunyadi Castle! We toured the halls and exhibitions, climbed an extensive amount of stairs to reach the tops of the castle’s multiple towers, and imagined what it would be like to be living in a castle in the Medieval period. We ended our visit to the castle by browsing the many vendors set up outside the castle before we all climbed back into the bus exhausted from our busy day.
Apulum Roman Villa Project 